[OR][condo] Should we sue?

Hello -

My spouse and I live in a 18-unit condo building in Oregon. We have a 2bed, 1bath unit. We purchased it in November of 2022. We don’t have a lot of money, and this took a big chunk of our savings to purchase. Per the bylaws, we are responsible to the interior, HOA is responsible for the exterior. In February of 2023, we had a bad snow that - when the snow melted - flooded our bedroom floors. We notified the HOA board and they did not really do anything / see where the water was coming from. We had to harass them basically and they eventually sent a handyman to add a little bit of waterproofing under the siding on the exterior corner of the building where our bedroom is. No one actually came out to look at the damage. We hired a contractor to look and they said water was getting into the exterior wall because the exterior siding was failing. We kept emailing the HOA and the HOA management company, and they wouldn’t reply. I even drove to the HOA management company‘s office during their business hours, only to find out they kept their office locked to the public.

Fast-forward to 2024, we had another snow and this time it was so much worse. Our floors are ruined, there is mold growing that we keep having to clean, and the subfloor is soft in one corner. The floors - real oak - are going to cost $10k to repair, and that’s not considering the subfloors. The drywall started to leak water (there are water bubbles in the paint), so I assume that will have to be repaired, as well.

We got a lawyer and he sent them a demand letter. The HOA didn’t really take it seriously at all. They won’t even reach out to their insurance company to open up a claim. We had several more contractors come out and they found dry rot under the siding, no waterproofing under cheap siding, and windows with failed insulation (no flashing around the windows was ever installed).

At this point, we don’t know what to do. They keep saying it’s our financial responsibility to fix the exterior of our home, but they aren’t bothering to fix the exterior building. A new contractor came to look at the building and said the exterior is so neglected across the entire building, and he gave a ballpark estimate of $400k to fix the siding and windows for the entire building.

We have some savings, but we don’t know if it would be enough to sue, and we can’t really sell the condo anymore in this condition. Any advice?